


tradition

by gamux



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 21:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3425555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamux/pseuds/gamux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's odd, don't you think? Such a strange way of saying sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tradition

Toby gives a yelp as the machine explodes in his face, circuits sparking at the overload of electricity suddenly being fed into them. He falls backwards, arms up to protect himself. The machine smokes and sizzles a second longer before shutting down. Martyn runs into the camp out of breath, calling out.

"Toby! Toby, what happened?"

Picking himself up and coughing the smoke out of his lungs, Toby simply gestures over his shoulder at the dead piece of machinery. Martyn frowns and opens the machine up, letting another cloud of smoke billow into the atmosphere. He rummages through fried wires and cogs covered in soot.

"What the hell did you do?" he demands, whirling on Toby.

"I just connected the wires and it blew up!" Toby explains angrily. "Don't blame me!"

"I can and will blame you!" Martyn jabs him in the chest. "I told you not to connect the wires because we still needed another piece!"

Toby steps back, head down, looking like a kicked puppy.

"O-Oh, right... I'm sorry, Martyn."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Toby!" Martyn growls, throwing his arms up in exasperation, bringing them down to massage his temples a moment later. "This machine is now scrap metal so we've got to waste more valuable resources making another due to your incompetence!"

Toby backs further away, curling in on himself, trying to make himself as small as possible. Martyn lets off a bit of steam by punching the broken machine, nursing his hand and swearing under his breath when the metal proves to be stronger than he had originally thought. He turns to Toby and the younger male immediately tenses.

"Grab an axe, go chop some wood." he sighs, voice softer than it had been a few seconds ago. "We'll leave the machines for now and get this area cleared out a little more."

Toby nods, hurrying over to the chest to grab an axe. Martyn follows him and he goes to lengths to avoid contact with him. As he passes him to leave the small clearing he apologises again. Martyn doesn't respond.

/\/\/\/\/\

Toby drops the axe at his feet, arms too tired to keep a grip on it anymore. There's two and a half full stacks of wood in his inventory and the axe is almost broken. He thinks he's done a good job and cleared enough of the trees for now. Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he picks up the axe again and rests it over his shoulder, heading back to the camp. Martyn’s nowhere to be seen and he frowns, residual guilt washing over him.

‘He’s probably taking ages just to avoid me.’ He thinks despondently.

He tosses the axe away. It’s almost out, there’s no point in keeping it. He waits around a fair while, twiddling his thumbs, pacing, practicing the exact words of his apology over and over in his head, running through every possible outcome to the scenario, good, bad and worst alike. He gets tired of waiting and goes to search for his friend. He wanders with no particular direction.

‘Where in the world is he?’

He hears the faint rhythmic sound of a swinging axe and creeps toward it. The clearing is small and lined with tree stumps. Each stump has a ring of rocks around it, and he pokes them with his foot in a confused manner. There’s a pile of rocks nearby. Martyn is on the other side of the clearing, stepping back as another tree falls.

Toby shrinks back into the shadows as the blonde turns around, but he doesn’t even notice him watching. Martyn picks up a large stone from the pile and places it at the base of the felled tree, repeating the action until the ring is complete. He dips his head and closes his eyes.

Toby feels like he’s intruding on something special.

Shooting Martyn one more apologetic look he won’t see, he leaves.

/\/\/\/\/\

When Martyn returns to the camp an eternity later he seems considerably less angry with Toby, and even cracks a joke or two while they’re setting up for dinner. They sit side by side on the log seat, huddling together near the fire to ward off the cold night. They hold their dinner on sticks and roast it above the licking flames. Toby twirls his stick lazily, fidgeting.

“So...” he clears his throat. Martyn gives him a sideways glance. “I went looking for you earlier, since I finished chopping trees sooner, and I saw you doing this weird thing with some rocks?”

He feels the blonde stiffen and his breath catches in his throat, instantly paranoid he’s done something wrong again and crossed a line by asking about whatever that thing was. Then Martyn sighs and relaxes.

“It’s an old family tradition.” He explains, rotating his stick absentmindedly. “Something I was brought up with.”

“I see...”

“It’s because of my family that I love trees so much. They’re the ones that taught me how special and vital they are.” He continues. “But, of course, we still had to chop them down. For kindling, for tools, for building material. My mum taught me to always say sorry to Mother Nature for chopping down the trees. She knows we need them, and she’s fine with us chopping them down as long as we apologise. There was one particular simple tradition of saying sorry that stuck with me – that’s what you saw. You arrange a circle of rocks around the stump of a fallen tree. It means...”

He pauses, looking up at the stars, face scrunching up in concentration as he tries to remember.

“...It means ‘I’m sorry’. I think there was a whole rhyme or chant to go along with it but I’ve long forgotten it.” He smiles sheepishly. “It’s an odd little habit, don’t you think? Such a strange way of saying sorry. I don’t know how a ring of rocks is supposed to mean you’re sorry but then again you are apologising to a tree-”

He trails off as Toby gets up and wanders into the dark woods. Martyn stands up but doesn’t leave the safety of the campfire.

“Toby? Toby, where are you going? It’s dangerous at night, you know that! Get back here before you get hurt.”

Toby comes back a moment later. Carrying a rock. He places it at Martyn’s feet and walks back into the woods. He does this several more times before Martyn finally puts the pieces together and struggles to contain his laughter. Once the final rock is placed, Toby stands in front of Martyn with an awkward smile.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

Martyn can’t help himself and he laughs, pulling Toby forward and into the circle, hugging him. He gives him a kiss on the forehead and Toby grins.

“I forgive you.”


End file.
